


You Cannot Keep Spring From Coming

by brevitas



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Deaf Character, M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 05:11:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brevitas/pseuds/brevitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Prouvaire is a piano virtuoso who loses his hearing when he's 23; Courfeyrac is the tutor he hires to teach him sign language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Cannot Keep Spring From Coming

When Jean Prouvaire is five years old he's adopted by a kindly family from the orphanage he's been in since birth; at nine they realize he's a virtuoso with a piano, and they put him in private lessons to nurture the talent. He outstrips his tutor within the year and his mother knows how much he loves to play so she hires another--this one is world-famous, and his name makes musicians swoon.

The first time Kazimir Mihaylov sets next to Jehan on the bench he doubts this boy can have the abilities people whisper of for he's small and has porcelain skin and wears his long blonde hair in a braid (today he even has a tiny posie tucked behind his ear). He clears his throat and says, "Play Rachmaninoff's 2nd sonata in B Flat minor."

Jehan looks up at him and smiles, and Kazimir believes that he is about to say that he cannot do that one, or does not know it, and is softening the blow by appearing so angelic. But he reaches for the keys and he begins to play, and by the time he finishes Kazimir knows without doubt that he must have him.

His parents agree to let Kazimir privately teach him and Jehan spends years under his tutelege, learning everything the Russian bear can pass on. When Jehan is fifteen Kazimir enrolls him in a local orchestra and invites half a dozen heads of prestigious music academies to attend his first concert. Jehan is breathtaking; he is dazzling when he plays, his hands moving with a grace that is nigh impossible. He stands and bows and crowd screams for an encore and, backstage, Kazimir has six men and women begging to bring Jehan into their schools.

He skips two grades and goes to a music college in New York when he's seventeen, finally leaving Kazimir behind. It is here he finds an ad in the newspaper from a man looking to share a large flat with a roommate. "Must be musically inclined," it reads, "And able to take a good joke."

He calls the number and sets up a lunch the next day and that is when he meets Grantaire, who wolf-whistles when he walks in and tells him, "You're the prettiest guy I've ever seen," as he sits down. They hit it off fabulously and Jehan moves in two days later.

The first morning Grantaire brings him a coffee and a daffodil, and tells him it's sunny outside so he should wear yellow; Jehan hugs him and says honestly, "I think I love you." They've lived together for five years now and Jehan graduates and Grantaire buys a bar, and they spend evenings on their couch watching shitty movies. Jehan goes on week-long trips for concerts in other countries and brings back pressed flowers and prose and plays the piano for Grantaire whenever he asks. He's happy and he thinks life like this is perfect. He wears oversized floral sweaters and goes to cafes with his rommate where he writes poems by the windows and always introduces himself as Jehan so no one will recognize his name.

A week after his twenty third birthday everything changes and he wakes up deaf--they rush him to the hospital and the doctors run a hundred tests on him and through it all Grantaire sits at his bedside, yelling at anybody who tells him to just _go home_.

Dr. Kehne is the one who tells him that he's permanently deaf six days later; he writes it out on a whiteboard and he's started to draw diagrams to show why and how but Grantaire forcefully evicts him a few minutes in (because he knows Jehan doesn't care about that shit). He crawls into the bed with him and holds his friend while he cries and swears to God that he can hear both their hearts breaking.

Grantaire drives Jehan home when he's released and gets an employee to cover his shifts--for a few days Jehan is unwilling to leave his bed and Grantaire, who can't be trusted plant-sitting, who made Jehan take over responsibility for their cat, dutifully brings him food when he thinks he should eat and sits on the edge of the tub while Jehan takes bubble baths. He tentatively suggests hiring someone to teach them sign language one morning (writing down everything is exhausting, and Jehan isn't flawless at reading lips yet) but Jehan determinedly shakes his head, his mouth set in a firm line.

The days continue like this and Grantaire has never seen his friend so dull and empty--he's worried that he'll do something reckless in his depression so when one of his workers call him and say that Grantaire needs to at least come in and do a few shifts, that their regulars are missing him, he tells him to fuck off (being the boss is wonderful, he thinks. He isn't sure why he didn't buy a bar years ago).

Jehan is livid when he finds out, and it's the first time in a long time that Grantaire has seen him so fierce. He scribbles furiously on the notebook he carries around to communicate with and throws it at Grantaire's head, who laughs when he reads what he's written.

"Come on," Grantaire coos, and he's careful to turn his head so Jehan can see his mouth. "I'll take some shifts later this week."

_You'll lose customers if you ignore them_ , Jehan writes back, swatting Grantaire's hand away when he reaches to soothe back the poet's hair. _Why aren't you going?_

Grantaire rocks back on his heels with a frown. "I want to look after you," he says and Jehan snorts.

_I hired a tutor_. Grantaire grins at the words, delighted, but Jehan returns to writing. _Go to the bar. He's coming in half an hour--I'll be fine_.

Grantaire gets in the shower and delivers Jehan a mug of coffee before he leaves, tells him to be careful and kisses his forehead on his way out of the door. He sits on the couch with a sigh and turns on Neflix, randomly picking a movie and flicking the subtitles on as he settles. They'd hooked a light up to the doorbell so when someone rings it the bulb flickers; Jehan gets up when he catches the sporadic flashing out of the corner of his eye and opens the door.

A curly-haired youth is standing there, a bag thrown haphazardly over one shoulder and a book under his arm. He grins at Jehan and signs something briskly, which Jehan watches dispassionately. He shakes his head, grabs his notebook and holds it up. It reads staunchly, I DON'T SIGN AT ALL across the top, and the man smiles again when he nods.

He takes the paper and writes something, passes it back to Jehan. He's printed his name on the top and sounded out the syllables, scrawled underneath that, Can you read lips? He has cute handwriting, Jehan thinks; he's dotted the i with a smiley face.

He looks up at Courfeyrac and nods, then lifts a hand and rotates it so as to demonstrate that he only kind of does it. Courfeyrac says slowly, "It's a pleasure to meet you," and they shake hands. Jehan gestures him inside and sits him at the table with a fresh notebook, points at the coffee maker and brings him a cup when he nods.

When Grantaire comes home a few hours later (he'd stayed and covered another shift, to prove his interest in keeping his patrons) Courfeyrac has gone, and Jehan is dozing on the couch. He wakes him and asks how it went, and Jehan allows a small smile when he writes that it was fine. He shows Grantaire the signs Courfeyrac taught him and says that he'll be coming back for another lesson tomorrow afternoon, and that Grantaire should join them if he's not working.

Grantaire knows immediately upon meeting him why Jehan is so fond of Courfeyrac; he's lively and constantly smiles, has thick dark hair that curls at ridiculous angles and he brings them scones. He's utterly adorable and easy to love, and eight appointments in Jehan wears a flower in his hair (it's the first one since the doctors and it's a lovely little hycacinth blossom and Grantaire can't stop smiling when he sees it).

Grantaire comes to every meeting and purposefully leaves once it's officially over, always with a flimsy excuse--he knows Courfeyrac lingers a while after the paid sessions, and he doesn't want to get in the way. Two months in he casually tells Jehan that taking Courfeyrac out to lunch as a thank you might be nice. Jehan blushes, but he wakes up thinking about it the next day and decides to follow through.

Courfeyrac has blurred the lines between teacher and friend and he's been given a key to their flat; now he walks in whenever he wants and rarely knocks, always carrying some sugary snacks or an energy drink or anything that's bad for him. When he arrives today he's carting around a massive bottle of red Gatorade. Jehan, sitting on the counter and watching his sausages cook, glances up and quirks an eyebrow.

He knows enough ASL now to communicate, but his vocabulary is steadily building; currently he speaks mainly in signed English and a few ASL phrases. He asks Courfeyrac, Turning healthy? and Cour grins.

"Nope," he says and sets his stuff down at the table. "I'm taking it to a friend."

Jehan's gotten rather adept at reading lips, and he nods to show he's understood and flips the sausage. Courfeyrac can see a smattering of inked words on the inside of his wrist and almost as though he knows he's being watched Jehan tugs his sleeve down.

He looks up and Courfeyrac tilts his head, asks curiously, "Do you want to meet them?" Jehan blinks at him, surprised, and he crosses to him so as to save his burning sausages. He puts them on a smaller plate and Jehan taps his shoulder with a slight smile, signs, I'd love to.

They leave Grantaire a note taped to the fridge door (Jehan promises he'll see it--the first thing Grantaire does after work is have a beer) and Courfeyrac drives them down to a cafe. It's a place Jehan has walked past a hundred times before but never been inside, and he smiles shyly as Courfeyrac leads the way inside.

Instantly there is a chorus of "Courfeyrac!" and a half dozen hands waving him over from the corner. They're instantly enveloped in the group; Courfeyrac sits down and for lack of another chair Jehan perches lightly on his knee when Cour pats it with a grin.

Across from them a brunette wearing glasses and a smile signs, Who's this? and Jehan is relieved to find that he can communicate with one of them at least.

I'm Jehan, he signs, and behind him Courfeyrac says aloud, "My student."

There are a few snickers around the table, and a blonde typing a paper on his laptop says to Jehan, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. We've heard a lot."

Jehan frowns and twists to look back at Coufeyrac, who appears sheepish. "Sorry," he says. "I've got a thing for poets."

Jehan's blush comes immediately and he crosses his arms across his chest, abashedly tugging on a sleeve to hide the poems. He had no idea Courfeyrac had even noticed the delicate stanzas marching across his skin, let alone _liked_ them (the first time Grantaire had seen him scribbling on his forearm with a fine-tip pen he'd cocked an eyebrow but said nothing--the second time he'd read the poem over his shoulder out loud, and the third time he'd tossed a book of poems into Jehan's lap and said he'd found it walking home and thought of him).

They go around the circle and make introductions, and Jehan commits each name to memory. The boy at the laptop is Enjolras; he's apparently a self-made revolutionary, and he's attending college for a political science degree. To his right is Combeferre with the glasses, who tells him that he's been deaf since birth and that Jehan is doing great.

There's Bahorel in the corner who is nursing a broken hand and makes do with signing by his good hand and mouthing words, and he's apparently a back alley boxer; fussing over his swollen knuckles is Joly, a young man pursuing a career in being a doctor. Seated at his back is bald-headed Bossuet who went deaf only a few years ago thanks to a stray gene and who loves to work with his hands; Jehan notices how close together Bossuet and Joly are sitting and sneaks a questioning glance at Courfeyrac, who only grins and nods.

Jehan explains that he lives with a hearing man named Grantaire and is surprised when Bahorel says that he knows him. "He works at The Barricade, right?"

And once Jehan has idenitifed which one is Grantaire most of them can say that they have met him, or at least seen him from afar; he usually comes down for at least an hour or two every night, and he's friendly with his customers so it's difficult to forget him (that and he has a habit of drinking with them while he works, challenging newcomers to a round of shots and sipping whiskey with old friends).

By the end of two hours Combeferre asks him if he'd like to come to lunch with them this weekend, signing, It will be fun, with a smile.

Courfeyrac taps Jehan's shoulder and says when he looks at him, "We could go together," pinching his mouth as he invites him, nervous that he will be turned down. Jehan blushes and lifts a hand to push his hair out of his face (a habit he is wont to do when anxious) and finds a line written across his palm that he must have inscribed earlier, the ink faded into his skin but still legible. It says 'so I wait for you like a lonely house' and Jehan smiles when he looks up at Courfeyrac and nods.

The friends jostle one another and whisper about love being in the air and first dates and Courfeyrac slides his fingers under the hem of Jehan's sleeve and rubs his thumb against the poetry on his skin, smiling down at him.

**Author's Note:**

> alright here we go lemme crack my knuckles  
> SO this is my first fic that centers on Jehan/Courfeyrac and I would never have wrote it at all but I fell in love with this idea and thus here we are.
> 
> I read a lot about the Deaf community and ASL and such and I'm striving not to offend anyone with this but if I do I would love it if you would let me know :)
> 
> technically Jehan has Sensorineural hearing loss (sudden deafness) and I'm blaming it on a gene? I'm not a science major I literally just manipulated a disease for my own advantage but I'm /hoping/ that it's possible to have late onset.
> 
> uh I think that's really all we've got for this series? I'm doing this in chapters instead of new installments to try it out.  
> oh oh the title's piece comes from a Pablo Neruda poem because I really like his work
> 
> tumblr is idfaciendumest and I love you all!


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